Level 11 - Desert Caravan

Quest Giver: Iosynne d’Phiarlan, next to her wagon on the western road in House Phiarlan
Level: 11 Party
Patron: House Phiarlan (6/12/18)
Length: long
Entry Point: Iosynne’s wagon
Prereqs: none
Recommended Party: 2 crowd control caster, could sub 1 bard, 1 cleric and 3 solid melees
Base Experience: 3,433
Quest Info:
--Creatures: scorrow, hyenas, scorpions
--Traps: none

Walkthrough:

Note: Completing this quest will allow you the use of the caravan to go to the desert, so long as you keep it marked as completed. If you reset the quest and do not complete it again, you will not be able to use the caravan in house P as a shortcut. You will have to go to the airship.

The ground transport to the desert needs protection, and you hire on for the job. Life as a mercenary caravan guard isn’t easy, though. The caravan is ambushed by a huge raiding party of Scorrow, hyenas and scorpions. Hold them off and defend the wagons for 25 minutes.

There are two shrines available, be sure you mark where they are. There are two main paths the raiders will come down, keep them bottled up with crowd control, or fight around the wagons. Web, Dancy balls, solid fog all work great with cloudkills to thin the crowd. Buffs tend to be dispelled by the scorrow, but the also cast webs all over, so freedom of movement is still worth casting for the low strength characters.

You don’t need to save all of the wagons, but don’t let any go if you can help it. The more ya have last longer, the better chance of success. If you run out of power and shrines, and it is looking bad, if you are willing to make an experience point sacrifice, the Bogwater Tavern isn’t far away.

Here is alternative strategy that works very well, sent in by SirGog of the DDO forums:

Here's an alternative guide for Desert Caravan, managed to run it on elite with no deaths, no wand/scroll/mana pot usage and only one caravan loss.

Party makeup: 2 casters with charm spells, 1 bard with charm spells, 1 cleric, 1 ranger, 1 DPS melee.

Casters charm everything that they can, and cast extended Symbol of Persuasion (if available) as often as possible. Kite mobs through Symbols to ensure the hard-to-charm Prophets get hit. The bard assists with whatever needs help - buffing, crowd control or healing.

The melee and ranger (and, if Destruction and spare SP is available, the Cleric) deal with the dogs that spawn and are immune to charm/suggestion spells (except the Symbols, this is why they are so good). Likewise the Ranger pummels any drow that spawn on top of the cliff.

Continue like this until victory. Before anyone uses a shrine, drop a Symbol of Persuasion in front of it - this makes it very hard for mobs to interrupt shrining.

Chests appear at the end of the quest. Speak to Iosynne by the shrine when the timer runs down.
End Reward: standard loot choice